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User blog:DarkClaw3/Supervillain Philosophy: Strong Heroes, Weak People
So, after rewatching the Incredibles movies, I got caught up in the different philosophies of villains and wanted to explain my thoughts on them. This is a little blog series I whipped up because of that. Anyways, this time I decided to look at a particularly relevant topic today (but we'll get to why later); do our heroes, specifically, superheroes, actually make us weaker? Villains With Said Philosophy Lex Luthor Lex is the classic example of a villain embodying this philosophy. In fact, he is probably the best example I've seen; of course, he's one of the best examples of a villain in general, so if he embodies anything, he naturally does it well. To understand why Lex fits this philosophy so well, one first has to know just where he comes from. Lex is like a more modernized example of Scrooge McDuck (in fact, they are disturbingly similar if you think about it, but that's not what we're here to focus on today); that is, a self-built billionaire of the highest degree. He started out as one of the poorest kids in the Suicide Slum, maybe the poorest, and from there, he built himself an empire. He harnessed his intelligence into one of the greatest in the entire world. He created a multi-billion dollar corporation with nothing but brains, hard work, and dedication (...and murder, and intimidation, and other illegal stuff, but he's covered that up). His work helped create at least half of Metropolis. He even made sure to chisel his body into near-physical perfection to match his immeasurable intellect. And so, having reached what seemed to be the pinnacle of human accomplishment, Lex became the idol of thousands almost overnight. He had fame. Admiration. Power. And a huge ego. Things looked like they couldn't get better... And then, Superman showed up. A man with powers beyond any human capability. A man who could fly, outrace speeding bullets, crush coal into diamond, and shoot laser beams out of his eyes. A man who, despite his immense powers, was raised benevolent and decided to help people no matter the cost. A man who was virtually a god; not only beloved, but worshiped by millions. He couldn't be hurt. He had virtually no weaknesses. He could hear crimes and cries for help across the wold, and had the power to stop them. He was seemingly perfect. And with him, came more like him. Batman. Wonder Woman. Green Lantern. Leagues of people who possessed abilities and admiration beyond what people could hope to achieve started springing out of the woodwork. And suddenly, nothing Lex did mattered anymore. No matter what, the front page of the Daily Planet would be more concerned with Superman stopping villains and saving cats rather than what Luthor and any other normal person accomplished. The world admired Superman, respected him, because he was more than human. And Lex was simply just human. But, again, not only was he human, but he was at the top. And yet, he was still worthless in comparison to Superman. And thus, Lex's perspective on the Man of Steel began. Superman, for all his power and generosity, was not helping the world as he thought. Far from it, actually. Superman was the worst thing that could've ever befallen humanity, because, through his very existence, he inhibited any and all human ambition and potential. After all, as Lex knew all too well, there was nothing that any normal person could hope to accomplish that would outdo Superman. So why should anyone bother to try, bother to work to better themselves, bother to become great? You'll never be Superman, the man who truly has everything. On top of that, Superman goes out of his way to make sure he's everybody's hero. He saves everybody, not even letting the villains die if he can. It was as if he wanted the world to rely on him. When Brainiac or Darksied, or any other problem arises for the world, humanity doesn't need to evolve or stand up, they can just sit back and relax while Superman does the work for them. If there's crime in Metropolis, there's no need for the police to do their job; by the time they arrive, Superman's already caught the criminals and stopped a hundred more like them. Essentially, not only did Superman halt human ambition with his mere existence, but he halted any chance they had to make evolutionary progress. So, for Lex, it seemed that there was only one true solution to ensure humanity is not depowered by the so-called heroes it worships; kill Superman. A solution that, for over eighty-eight years, Lex has failed, failed, and failed again to see through. And that's basically Lex's dislike of Superman and other heroes in a nutshell. He hates them because he knows he and every other normal person on earth will never become something like them (but mostly him, though). He hates them because when a threat arises, people will turn to the superheroes instead of solving the problem themselves; and when the heroes fail, or even turn against the people they're supposed to protect, what happens then? He hates them because they changed the definition of what "power" and "relevance" is, so that if you didn't have powers like them, you weren't worth anything. And, most of all, he hates them because...well, they really just hurt his ego. And that's the problem with Lex. Although he claims to hate Superman and the like for their inhibition of human potential, his self-worth is really the only thing at stake for him. He doesn't exactly care about humanity's potential, but his own; that's why he's gone to so many extreme lengths to increase his own power, that's why he wanted to join the Justice League, that's why he literally tried to become the next Superman in DC Rebirth, etc. So, in the end, Lex's perspective on this philosophy is pretty brilliant, even though it doesn't motivate him as much as I'd like to think. Screenslaver (WARNING: HUGE SPOILERS FOR INCREDIBLES 2) If you recall me saying that the idea of heroes making society as a whole weaker was relevant today, this is why. Incredibles 2 is a massive film that garnered the biggest opening weekend of any animated movie ever made, so the ideas brought up in the film are bound to get some attention; hell, this movie and its villain are what inspired me to discuss this topic. Love her or hate her, Evelyn Deavor/The Screenslaver, despite being vastly inferior to Syndrome, does possess a marginally more interesting motivation, at least in my eyes. Prior to her villainy, Evelyn, much like Lex, seemingly had everything she could've wanted; wealth, a promising future, and a loving family. That was, at least, until the night when burglars broke into her home and murdered her father, and indirectly killed their mother through heartbreak as well. Now, to the unseeing eye, that would appear to be all that happened that tragic night. But not to Evelyn and her brother Winston. You see, right before Mr. Deavor died, he attempted to call his hero buddies Gazerbeam and Phyronic for help, although they had been both outlawed and rendered un-contactable by the previously established Super Relocation Act, resulting in Mr. Deavor being shot and killed by the two burglars. Their father's final act took a major tole on the perspectives of the young Deavor children. For Winston, he saw the abolishment of heroes as a massive mistake, as they were prohibited and rejected for simply trying to do the right thing by a public who's perspective is shaped by the damage they can do rather than the deeds they perform; to him, if supers had still been around, his parents would still be alive. For Evelyn, the more reasonable of the two, her perspective was radically different. She saw that her father foolishly threw his life away by waiting for and relying on the supers to save him, rather than just hiding away in the safe room with her mom and putting himself in immediate danger, something Evelyn wasn't entirely unjust in thinking; to her, if her father had let go of his over-dependence on supers for just a moment, he would still be alive. At this point in her life, Evelyn knew about supers and how they kept humanity weak by saving the day and stopping problems they were too lazy to stop. But the thing was, it wasn't just supers that were the problem; in fact, they were really just a side effect. Humanity was already becoming a weaker, more submissive race before the first super hit the scene. Instead of experiencing real life, they were watching life go by through a TV screen, without thinking, mind you. They were brainless slaves to electronic media that packaged and delivered anything meaningful right to their doorstep without anything of genuine substance. And so, with legions of people too enamored with playing the puppet to actually solve any problems, what does the government do? They employ and benefit supers to solve the world's issues and make the weakened people feel safe and secure as they sit around, experiencing a mediocre existence of relative meaningless. Evelyn's beliefs were now fully realized. So, with these problems already present in society and her brother's plan to legalize supers once more having the potential to come into fruition, what was she to do? The obvious answer was to show the world who supers were. To bring them about again and make the world see what makes them good, then show them the true, daunting evil underneath. And so, Evelyn created a villainous persona named Screenslaver out of a pizza delivery guy who was unfortunate enough to have visited her house one night. Using advanced hypnotic technology, she brainwashed the pizza guy and used him to convey her anti-super message to the world, fully turning anybody watching her program into the brainless, motionless zombies they were slowly becoming, and punishing those who possessed any over reliance on screens. She wanted the world to fear the destructive power of both screens and supers, and thus concocted a master plan where she would take control of the three most powerful and renowned active supers; Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, and Frozone, and force them to broadcast a supremacistic message to the world before destroying themselves, the other supers, the world leaders who supported them, and hundreds of other innocent people to drive home her message; superheroes keep us weak. Category:Blog posts